- It is time for a cull of lawyers. Following on from the Kym Worthy story last week. I am sure that some of them do some good sometimes, but in my experience the main winners from litigation are the lawyers. This latest misuse of the legal system is a prime example of this.
- Nintendo pull Wii advertising. Difficult one this. It looks like they kept running it despite the shortages in order to build brand. But now the under-supply of product is so great that the campaign will just annoy consumers and do more harm than good.
- Hudson announce iPhone/iPod Touch portal with a new game every week. More evidence that these devices are gaming platforms to be taken seriously. The only worry must be their ability to stand the higher level of wear and tear that gaming, obviously, entails.
- Manhunt 2 beats the censors. This is a trully appalling game in every possible way. However this is a great victory. Censors should not be able to decide what an adult reads, views or plays. In this instance the content is no worse than many movies and had already been cleared for sale in most of the world. The original ban was just plain stupid.
- £1,000 Wii bundles on Ebay. Maybe it was Nintendo who put the bids in to create a great story! There is no doubting that there is massive demand and that this is the must have toy for this Christmas. People have been making a lot of money on trips to Europe, where they are freely available, to buy them by the hundred to bring back and sell on eBay in the UK. Over the last few days the stock situation seems to have eased a little so maybe Nintendo are redirecting stock themselves. The installed base of all these consoles in family lounges is going to make game publishing a lot more interesting.
- DS sell 6 million in USA so far this year. I was at E3 in 2004 when Sony were at the height of their PS2 pomp. The PSP was there and people queued just to see the packaging and queued for hours to see the machine itself. Then went back to their companies and wasted millions developing for it. At the same E3 Nintendo launched the DS to a muted response. And when, one evening in the bar during the show, I told two directors of Codemasters that I expected the DS to be more successful than the PSP, they laughed at me. So news like this is very sweet for me. DS still has a lot more sales left in it, especially in education, where it could break through to be a revolution.
- UKÂ retailer points way for big media companies. HMV are replacing music CDs (a declining market) with video games (an expanding market) in their retail stores. The writing is on the wall. Video gaming will continue to grow to be the biggest media industry whilst other areas of media are in decline. There is a huge power shift going on here.
- Like for like sales up nearly 50% this year. A great result for specialist retailer Game and just more proof of where gaming is going and how fast. The only very slight worry is if Wii proves to be a bit of a bubble giving us a temporary fall back. It is up to the industry to make sure that it isn’t.
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Re. DS sales:
I was at that same E3, and was forced to listen to supposed industry professionals laughing at the DS. “It’s a gimmick!” they said. “The PSP will slaughter it!” they said. “What a pile of shit!” they said.
Will this put a stop to spurious and baseless prophecising?
Will it f